In a bit of an internet trawl, I stumbled on Financiers...small rectangular cakes made with an egg white base, and not the traditional meringue whip followed by folding in a dry ingredient. even better, they used a silicone mould that just happened to be lying around in the kitchen.
I went for a simple flavour (chocolate and almond) for these, as it was my first attempt doing the recipe. Quite happy at how they came out, it made about 40 (I did 20 with almond flakes on top, and 20 with a blanched hazelnut pushed in, though I should probably have done 2). they are a mouthful or two each, so perfect petit-four size, and really simple to make. the most complex thing is the beurre noisette (a posh way of saying brown/burnt butter), however even that is not exactly hard... I only had one mould with 20 cavities, so did 2 runs.
For some reason they remind me of dominoes, and it would be fun to make an edible set, maybe with 6 flavours/colours?
Chocolate Almond Financier Petit Four
- Pre-heat oven to 170'C
- Get a 20-rectangle silicone mould (~2 inch by 1 inch cavities), and place it on a baking tray
Ingredients
- 140g butter
- 115g ground almonds
- 35g plain flour
- 1g salt
- 25g cocoa powder
- 120g egg whites (approx 3 large egg whites)
150g icing sugar - Blanched hazelnuts (optional)
- Flaked Almond (optional)
2) Keep stirring until the butter begins to turn brown. once it does immediately take off the heat and decant into a heatproof bowl, and leave to cool
3) In a mixing bowl put the flour, ground almonds, salt and cocoa powder, and use a sieve to mix them together4) Put the egg whites into a stand mixer with the whisk attachment
5) Whisk until the egg whites are loosened (you're not whipping air into them, just slackening them off)
6) Add the cooled brown butter to the egg whites, and continue to whisk to combine
7) Add the icing sugar in thirds, whisking each in (again, you're not making a meringue here, just using the whisk as a mixer to combine)8) Finally, add the dry ingredients to the mixer and combine until smooth
9) Transfer the mix to a piping bag (no nozzle needed, it's just easier to handle)10) Chop off the end, and fill each silicone mould to roughly the top (the mixture rises slightly, but not much)
11) If you want, push hazelnuts into each mould, or place a couple of almond flakes on top12) Bake in the oven for 12 minutes
13) Remove from the oven, and once it's cool enough to touch, transfer the cakes to a wire rack to cool.